


[Cullen Family Meta] Edward's Opinions On His Family

by wanderlustlover



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Canon Meta, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:31:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All done in fun and games, and utter serious consideration of the characters and original canon (in a gaming group called Milliways, where the characters were being played, and where we loved to do a lot of side work for no purpose but Sparkle!Love). </p><p>Kept for posterities sake now. Written on February 4th, 2009, and that following week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Opinions on one Ms. Alice Cullen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stephmuji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephmuji/gifts), [prixetoile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prixetoile/gifts), [zelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelly/gifts), [babyduckie484](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyduckie484/gifts), [viridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viridian/gifts).



I think the only proper way to start with Alice is to start at the beginning -- which never really existed, because nothing had to begin. 

We can say the hypothetically there was a 'beginning' when he came home with Emmet from hunting and found his family two voice larger -- probably with the first group confused but accepting of the Alice story based on the things she'd told them that she shouldn't have been able to know previously. And these two voices -- a tiny bundle of bounce and a militant, aggressive elder vampire. That there were a few seconds where he was unhappy, aggressive, defensive...and then he touched Alice's mind.

I think it would take seeing her vision of their future -- their = their/Alice & Jasper, their = Alice seeing them coming to the Cullen’s, their = his/family, their = ALL OF Them -- that there would be massive shift in his translation of Alice. Because he'd be able to see a) how her powers work and b) feel her utter and complete faith in her visions. I think it would make him, while not at the first second fully welcoming, much less compelled to be aggressive against their being there.

His ability to relay to his family, given his powers, also probably made their transition into Alice easier. Which in turn, while they aren't worrying about her and Jasper as much, makes his headspace an easier place to be.

I can say with absolute faith, that Alice saw Edward, and specifically, Edward & Alice's relationship, coming. Just the same way she saw The Cullen’s coming. Just the way she saw how she would love Bella way before anything actually happens in canon. Because that's all Alice. She knows the big, nearly unchangeable things and Edward was among them.

And I think Edward seeing that through Alice's mind, after seeing her ability to be right, would mean they skipped having a beginning and over the usual first five or ten steps most people find necessary in a friendship start. Because he could see it and he found the reasons to believe it even over being skeptical. 

I, also, think that by this time in his life, Edward near desperately needed someone like Alice (without of course very much realizing he needed it. Quite like Bella's introduction). It's been fifteen years since Emmett changed at this point. The dynamic is dynamically changed. He's living with two very, very dedicated couples and as one of three children. Even having softened to Rosalie, and having gotten an amazing comrade out of Emmett. And at just over thirty years without anyone to him as Esme and Carlisle or Rose and Emmett were to each other, or even anything remotely near it. 

And suddenly there she is -- in person and in his head and in her head and in the future. A person with a large power, that also is at the whim of their power, both unable to control it and lacking in any outward application for it. Both with some glaringly large holes in their lives created by their powers, as much as their lives are helped by them. 

With their powers combine (they are the Wonder Twins. Er, I mean, in seriousness) I think Edward constitutes a Catch 22 for Alice that no one else can. When Alice has visions with the rest of the world she has to relate them to people, whether in living them or drawing them down, which means they all usually have to go through the motions of what she saw and what's going to happen, making it seen-->relayed-->lived/reacted to.

With Edward he sees it at the moment it's happening (how, when, why, all the details) and this creates a dynamic which can be played with and against, that also circumvents/skips time and future, without changing it. 

A good example of this kind of Catch 22 fun: Remember Alice's Milliways introduction thread? 

Alice comes to Edward because she sees a vision of Edward checking through the doors in a search to make Milliways appear for him. His decision to look at the doors (which he wasn't certain he would yet, but her visions make certain will happen) is directly corollary to him finding the door at the end of her vision. But because they both know he's going to look for the doors, and he's not going to change his mind about it, and where the door is -- Alice and Edward skip steps one through five (because he never changes his mind that he would look for the doors), going from standing there talking about it (and watching him find it) to simply walking up to one door and it opens to Milliways. 

I think this example is indicative of almost all things Edward and Alice. Because he can do for her something no one else can -- he can live and act in the future and present of her mind with her. 

Which, of course, is how they play chess. (You know...after everyone else gets tired of Edward being able to see their strategy and Alice being able to see their moves ahead of time) 

Because they don't have to move chess pieces. Edward only has to make the decisions of which ones he would move while they play on the ever changing chess board in Alice's visions. Try to imagine a chess game where you could continue to play two steps behind yourself and three steps in front of yourself at the same second. Where you could undo or redo based on a single thought on one side and/or sudden domino outcomes on the other. Always hinging on thought, probably, possibility and future all at once. It would be the kind of challenge that neither of them could get in a game with the others of their family. 

Which I think you could and should parallel out on multiple other levels of their lives. They create a challenge and a peace for each other they don't find in other places. Where things are simply understood and taken as they are given (both controlled and utterly uncontrollable). 

Her powers also shifted her quickly into another area. Alice was an even further line of defense for his family, which endears her on so many levels so very quickly. The continued ability for both of them to use these powers made them a sort of sentinels for their family -- watching out together against what might or was happening. Which makes them compatriots in their jobs on the same vein.

I think in a lot of ways Edward doesn't have a word to call what Alice is or suddenly became in his world. Sister or even best friend is something lesser, because friends do not happen outside of the family and because he had one sister before her who is nothing near the same. 

Alice's youthful exuberance frees Edward up to enjoy acting younger and to having more plain *fun* than he would. Which he does with her, but not so much with others (aside from Emmett). He is willing to conceded to her joys and wishes, no matter how silly and provincial (most of the time), in a way he probably only would for Esme. Except its less dynamic related with Alice. 

Because she's Alice. 

 

Another very important things to consider in Alice and Edward is that that each could report on the other where it comes to lying. 

But that when they know the other is, they don't. They keep each other’s secret and play the part in each other ruses which backs up the liar as telling the truth. Not so much by standing up and saying the person is saying the truth....so much as by not saying anything at all or acting anything other than though it is the most normal thing in the world. 

They live in very secret free realms -- him always knowing what is happening with people now and her always knowing what will happen to people then. And they chose to keep each other’s very detailed secrets to themselves, knowing they instinctively live in each other’s powers and comforts. In their only little world. 

I think Edward and Alice snipe at each other frequently in the complaining ways of how they act, because underneath they both acknowledge without words that their bond has an existence beyond them, past and present and future. They can simply endure whatever the emotional ups and downs, joys and disappointments, of each other are because the rest is already a known. They know they get to be whatever it is they are for the rest of time. It's all trivial details without a risk -- which makes it far more than safe to be able to yell and snap and tease and taunt and be brutally honest with each other. Because there isn't a chance of the other person leaving or being mortally offended or something leading to a division. 

Which brings me to Alice leaving. 

Because the reaction Edward has is even further proof of his faith/thoughts on Alice. When they are discussing who gets who for the final battle, Edward claims Demetri, with a look of hate. But when asked why he wants him, he says "For Alice. It's the only thanks I can give her now for the last thirty years." 

Because Edward? After Alice has vanished? Is not focusing on the fact Alice abandoned his family. He knows she's abandoned their family. And done it by choice. And him? He's focused on the fact he never was able to thank her enough for what she was in his life when she was there. It's why his first question about why Bella kept a secret from him is Alice's name. Because you know -- you have to absolutely know -- Edward knows she left because of a vision. He doesn't know what was in it, or if she'll be coming back ever, but that Alice lives by her power and her power said she had to go wherever and she went. Because that's how Alice's operandus Mondi works. And if she didn't tell him, tell him of all people, there had to be a reason. Even if he doesn't know it. Because all he knows is she left. Which is how she had to have it. 

And why he's the one who introduces Alice back into the fight. Because you know they're out there talking their silent crazy, I see you thar in my thoughts, way, even during the crazy fight once she appears on the far far sidelines. 

This also does not stop him from tucking her under his arm for the rest of the encounter once they are the victors. Because it is Alice and Edward's head goes !@@#$#$%#$%#$%^-elevenity-billion-keyboardsmash at the thought of not having Alice nearby in some *known* capacity. And I have no doubt it was crazy as difficult for her not to let him see, because the dawning terror, shutting him out of her thoughts in the panic, and having to abandon him at the first hint of her vision because *he couldn't be allowed to see* if she was going to save him and Nessie and everyone. It makes me flail like hell for both of them, because of who they are to each other and what it would mean to have to keep the other out for the well being of them and the family. 

And yet you know they just smiled at each other in the end, at the end of the battle, with her tucked there under his arm -- because they skipped steps one through five -- and it's Alice's power and Alice was protecting the family and Edward -- and they get it because they get each other. So while Bella's all glares and you played us unfair, Edward's got Alice tucked under his arm and you know they're having a right amused as hell time with each other in their thoughts and small actions and the rest is gone, because it's the past, and Edward and Alice together, with and for each other, only live in the present and the future. 

Which Bella misses this, as well as most of the people gathered as witness -- while only the other Cullen’s recognize it as just Alice and Edward being The Freaks Alice and Edward Have Always Been And Always Will Be. 

Which leads to another point, even if it's skipping in all the wrong directions -- Alice's visions of Bella. I have to believe, as a reader and player of Edward, that a good one-third of Edward's drama through pre-Bella is that he's having to literally sunder the very foundation of his world. He's having to willful convince himself Alice -- who is never wrong and who's visions are to be believed and used to protect them and predict the future so they can be safe -- IS WRONG. Which goes against every iota of his last fifty years, and probably the strongest (or second strongest, depending) bond he has in his family. 

That to stay sane and to not kill this girl and not take her soul? He has to sacrifice Alice. 

And he chooses his insanity over Alice.

Which does not even begin to be touched by the elevnty billion keyboard smash of the earlier example because -- there he is losing his hold on reality and himself. And he's now willingly and willfully kicked out the singular column who understood him better than he understands himself. I cannot begin to explain how much this has to be killing him. To choose to not believe her in the present or in the future. Just to shut Alice out? Has to be hell. On top of the already newly exploded level of hell his life became with Bella's introduction. Because he can't have Alice there to help. 

(.....you know, while Alice isn't taking it personally cause this is all gonna pass somehow and some when. And it's Edward. And they get forever, so his being a stupid head now is just one of those ups and downs that don't affect their ending status quo. [Just like the keeping of Bella or the death of Bella wouldn't. Only the details of how and where their future shifts to.]

Which is part of why he's still there, and they're still there talking through all of it. Because he's trying and succeeding to snarl her future but not to snarl theirs. And she's bugging him to talk to her, and he's snapping at her that she shouldn't want to if he's just going to kill her, and they are just operating together out of synch, completely unable to abandon each other entirely....because the present is the only subject in jeopardy, and it's the only place he can be just then.) 

I really, really, really love the Alice-Edward out-of-time-and-space dichotomy. In flaily arms ways.

Because they really do just get each other. 

And I'll stop now, before this doubles again, even though I’m sure it’s hardly done.


	2. Opinions on one Dr. Carlisle Cullen

Oh, where to even start. This one is harder than Alice even, based on time frame and depth. Edward would literally do anything for Carlisle -- bearing, past Bella's introduction, that it doesn't adversely affect her, but everything else. Everything else. Anything else. 

And that clouds everything into a specific filter. 

Carlisle gave him life, a purpose, a family. Very much in that order. I think that Edward views them very much as contemporaries, but he still looks up to Carlisle greatly. He always saw Carlisle as the patriarch, but even more important he always saw as an idealist. 

One who wasn't only dreaming the ideal, in otherwise very un-ideal situations, but who managed to flourish and destroy the standard on his quest. He managed not just not to drink human blood and not to kill, but to get himself to where he didn't feel the urge and need to, because of his passion for helping people. It sets the bar very, very high and makes him some very, very easy to look up to.

The age difference is still present, but I think Edward would have accepted the family dynamics easily after a little rearranging with Esme's change. Because it would have made Carlisle so happy to have her (and how could Edward ever dislike Esme?).

I think they have had their ups and downs and tensions. Namely among them his early years, his rebellion years, and the Rosalie mistake. 

I think the early years Edward had to get used to his powers, through and with Carlisle, who was the one who recognized his powers first. I think being able to hear how good Carlisle was (even flawed and human) made him all that much easier to continue to venerate him then (and across time). 

I think the rebellion years would have been more painfully hard on them than angrily or disappointedly hard. We know it took him ten years to be able to rebel because he understood Carlisle's reasoning’s so well. Edward probably made the choice to go after evil people because he could never touch an innocent person based on Carlisle's life and choices. But it was probably very hard to leave them and not exactly easy on any side. I also think coming back was harder for Edward, because Carlisle (and Esme) brought him back in with open arms, like the prodigal son, when he learned he couldn't live with killing even evil people because it was still the taking of a life. 

I think that discovery? And the discussions which followed it between Carlisle, cemented their bond immensely. Because they both fell into the same category of finding all human life worth remaining alive and untouched by their kinds ways. They both embraced it from the differing sides of their lives and choices. 

I do think they came to hard words over Rosalie. Many times. Because Carlisle meant well, and Edward would have been able to see/read that a million times over, but Edward would have been enraged and insulted. 

That Carlisle felt it necessary that Edward needed to change and be more than who he was. That Carlisle felt it necessary to choose someone for his life to make him better, because obviously he was exactly like him in needing it. That Carlisle chose for him as his equal Rosalie Hale, a vapid vain creature of beauty and little depth, was just a paramount insult to the view of his self through Carlisle's eyes (even if he knew it wasn't true or correct to view it that way, being able to see Carlisle's thoughts on him. Consider this the actions vs. words dilemma). That he had to give up his present life for her notoriety pre-death and Carlisle's very little thought before it...

Yeah. I have feeling that was a very rough time for Carlisle and Edward......even if he'd still have listened to all his orders and been there for Carlisle and Esme, because they were still his end all and be all. I do have a feeling this was probably the first time since his prodigal return that Edward put his foot down and there was a decree from God that Carlisle would never do this again (in reference to Edward's future/life, not in reference to making family members). 

But you know what's three to four rough edged years in their eight decades together? 

One of the many reasons among the massive explosive of Edwards irrational refusal to change Bella hides a few very realistic ones, too. Among those is the fact he doesn't want to do to Carlisle what Rosalie did to him. 

Edward would have gotten to see the inside of Carlisle's head while Rosalie there were the Rosalie first the massive ordeals of her realizing she was dead and wishing someone had stopped them. Which would have been drastically different reaction for him to deal with than Esme or Edward had given Carlisle. 

She doesn't end herself, coming to terms with the rest on her own, but I think her reactions are part of why Carlisle made the huge decision not to change anyone again. Because it was like being slapped in the face with having played a God without a conscience, even though they all knew he was trying to help her. I think Edward having to watch Carlisle go through this would have been very hard, because it would be having to watch Carlisle all too intimately question all his choices with them past and present. 

Then to make the choice not to turn anyone again was over turned by Rosalie's desperate begging of him to change a stripling, near death, simply 'because she wanted it' would have tortured Carlisle as well. Because he didn't know if Emmett would want it and the one person bitter (or regretful, if the bitter is gone by the three years later) with having been turned...is the one demanding he do it for her. 

Edward can't do that to Carlisle. 

It's why he admits in his own narration he could see how he could give in to utter selfishness and see himself asking for Bella. Because it's not simply giving into changing Bella....it's giving into the fact he, too, could demand Carlisle to do something against his conscience and personal reservations against the act of changing people (still current since he hasn't changed anyone since Emmett, over forty years ago). 

Edward doesn't want to be that person to Carlisle. 

Because it would be far too easy to be right when he pointed out he hasn't ever asked anything this serious of his family ever. And it would only make the situation even crazier. So he settles for it being another sensible reason for why Bella won't ever be turned by them. 

He'd never even consider saying he knows Carlisle would. Nor could he deal with Carlisle having the same reactions and responses over him that were once had over Rosalie or Emmett. Since he'd have to hear about in broad, streaming clarity piped directly to his head. All the time. 

 

Through Carlisle he got a family, probably without knowing he needed one, gave him people to look after and guard against. He probably feels a great debt of getting to have this life provided to him, for him, molded into being around him, instead of say the Volterra life...because it's not hard to know Carlisle would have recognized Edward's gift as one that group would have wanted and kept him from them for the long shot of the beginning.

Having a family fulfills Carlisle and Edward grew into the notion of it for him, I'm sure at first. Because his position shifted when Esme came in, changing the dynamic from friends/companions/little brother/son/etc to very specifically one or the others siblings, or boths child. Which then once they had Rose and Emmett and Edward it was impossible not to pull on the children routine with three very young looking people. 

But giving him more and more family members, Carlisle gave Edward a purpose. To watch over people, both in their family and outside of it. So they could know what was and would be about to happen and be able to protect themselves or handle the fall out, possibly before anything actually fell. The whole idea of there being an eyes and ears conspiracy between them once upon a time, way back when Rose and Emmett were both shiny and new, and a bit rambunctious in their unpredictability, wouldn't surprise me at all.

In many ways, lacking an opposite, Edward has had eighty years to venerate Carlisle's actions in the best way -- imitation. He's gotten a doctorate twice. He's read more books than anyone except Carlisle. He's cultivated languages, music, culture, degrees and the life style of learning, exploring, and indulging in the graces this gift of (un)life could give. 

And for all of this -- the dream, the man, the family, a purpose, the endless possibility -- it's not hard to see that Edward would sit through high school and play the rough edged, stellarly brilliant, nearly always obedient, seventeen year old for a public he couldn't care less about. 

It's the least Carlisle could ask of him that he'd give without hesitation. It's like swatting a fly compared to being willing to walk on coals for someone. 

 

Also. 

There are are secrets of Carlisle's that Edward keeps from his whole family. And has for decades on decades. And he doesn't see this as the wrong choice or a betrayal of the others. It's Carlisle. 

That what it all comes down to. 

It's Carlisle.


	3. Opinions on one Mrs. Esme Cullen

I think starting this with a growing focus toward my examining Edwards beginnings has helped me with getting my head around the relationships. With having done Carlisle, my mind naturally progressed to Esme.

I feel, for Edward, all things family and age/time awkward were figured out when Esme joined. Because here was this girl, who Carlisle was suddenly absolutely devoted to and changed by -- who was six years senior in how many human years she'd had, and yet still was his junior (or near contemporary) where it came to learning their new world/life.

I think the complications made it much easier to claim Edward (based on their matching appearance coloring) as being her younger brother.

At the very beginning, When it was just Carlisle and Esme, I'm pretty sure Edward was fine with just being the third person attached to a very dedicated couple (you know, anything for Carlisle in its early stages)....without there being any necessity for a family dynamic to exist at all. And that it was Esme who changed his entire thought process on that.

She had a sweet, softness about her, a truly passionate love, and her entire focus was based on a need to be a caregiver for others (which is complimentary, but not the same as Carlisle's need to help people). She would have given their world a shift toward being more taken care of, instead of just two men traveling and living together. A softer, smoother edge born in among to all of it.

Which I think early on meant Edward was doing it for her (and Carlisle), more than feeling it fit. Because he could see all too clearly from her thoughts exactly what she'd gone through (with her husband and child) and how very little she needed to have her needs met and be truly content....and he just set about making sure he wasn't acting against it.

Then got used to it and her, and the act slipped from being a simple gift into something quite real.

Because Esme is to him the sweetest and gentlest person among them. The person who he can't bear being a trouble to. He worried about the possibility of disappointing Carlisle while in Alaska, but it plagues him that he knows Esme is worrying over him even then.

Just the way it comes out, I'm tempted to say while Edward would have considered Carlisle far more important still....that Esme was the first person Edward considered family. And the first person who he wanted to make things easier and better for, who he set out to protect from the weird and off out in their world. Because she was Esme, and Esme deserved better than be given reasons to worry about either of them. Or anything really.

Edward never once doubted Esme would welcome him back with open arms and forgiveness after those rebellion years. It's not ever even a thought that she wouldn't. It's harder because he knows she's a world of acceptance, love, softness and making things better. But I think actually walking back into made him incapable of not ingratiating her into being part of everything that was his life, and how she was very much acting the role of a mother to his choices/life even if it wasn't an openly titled position then.

I don't feel the Rosalie-Emmett explosions really touched Edward’s feelings toward Esme. He would understand why Esme wanted him with someone else, wanted him to have a family, an equal. It had made her life, gave it meaning, was reinforced by the things she needed and wished to fulfill in other people’s lives. That she wanted that for him is a compliment. She wants to give more.

I do feel that Rosalie and Emmett were accepted easier, if not less quickly, by Edward because they filled in even more Esme's need to be caring over people. Her needs to have people to care for coinciding with the sudden apparent need to change their cover story, what with two people in their twenties and three in their teens.

And how easy it would be not to rock the boat with Esme being happier and happier the more people she got to care for. Especially as he grew to really like Emmett. And then attached himself to Alice, after her appearance, like he'd found a missing part of himself. Then enjoying siblings would come along with the perk of making Esme happier at the same time. Bonus points all around.

That by this time it wasn't as hard to let the dynamic settle into a family with Carlisle and Esme as the obvious forerunners.

Out of all the Cullen's, Esme is probably the person he is most protective and defensive of, careful, gentle and complying toward. Which isn't to say he thinks she can't defend herself and isn't a right perfect monster herself, it's that he doesn't want to trouble her. He doesn't want other things to trouble her and doesn't want to be the person who causes her distress.

He changes his plans dozens of times in different places across the four point whatever books to see Esme or make sure things don't bother her...displaying an easy outward process of being willing to change most things that happen in a day so they won't ruffle her world in the slightest.

Following behind Alice, she's probably the person he's second most fond of. For all intents and purposes, he's probably all but an obvious mama's boy, with the hinging on that being their mutual ages and length of relationship. Which probably goes all the way back into his issues of having not connected with his birth mother over what he felt he wanted and needed to do then. Esme redefined unconditional acceptance, compassion and support.

 

Plus, you know there are dozens of musical pieces he's written, learned and played simply because it makes her smile.


	4. Opinions on one Ms. Rosalie Hale

Edward and Rosalie are like oil and water.

They fight like cats and dogs, which starts as far back as his first words to her not being kind or compliment or welcoming. He didn't want to fixed up by his 'parents.' He didn't approve of Carlisle changing so influential and well-known a person as Rosalie Hale.

Where Carlisle, Esme and Edward each came from a place they were probably known. All of them were low key members of their societies in the place when she comes into story. There is no choice but to uproot all of their lives.

*Which they don't do*

Because they allow her to go on revenge killing spree in her wedding dress instead. Which I promise you would have been Edward being all over that with the crazy.

Add to it that she's incredibly beautiful and insanely vain about needing everyone to compliment/notice/indulge her beauty, which Edward really doesn't indulge much. And not spontaneously on innocuous things. Especially when beauty is a skin deep quality and he has to listen to her thought process all the time.

Edward doesn't begrudge Rosalie her not wanting to have been saved. Which isn't the same as saying he's probably gotten both a) used to hearing her thoughts related to it and b) tired of it at different times. Because she's obviously moral enough that she hasn't killed herself and is staying with the family (though I wouldn't put it past Rosalie to have spent a good long time considering suicide idly, without purpose, in the beginning). 

He does begrudge Rosalie her huge acts of hypocrisy though. I think that when Rosalie, who had turned Carlisle's world upside for turning her when she wouldn't have wanted it, forced Carlisle to turn Emmett, I think Edward would have seen it as the hugest betrayal and line crossing Rosalie was possible of making at that point.

That she'd made them live with the fact Carlisle shouldn't have changed her and then demanded they change someone who was half-dead, be clung to because he reminded her of someone else from her past, and Emmett unable to make the choice himself was a baffling amount of hypocrisy. That she chose him because he reminded her of a little boy from her past -- not because Emmett himself mattered even the slightest -- would have infuriated Edward. That it ground salt into the wounds Carlisle was carrying and the choices he'd made since Rosalie (due to her change and after) made it worse. 

I think maybe this would have made their relationship worse for a short while in there. You know, before the awesome that was Emmett made it impossible not to see how Rosalie softened as she actually fell in love and changed for her massive time in life. 

Edward probably considered it (and possibly still does) a fluke of stupendous rarity. That it would have worked out so well out of such a black and explosive place. 

That Rosalie and Emmett were so made for each other. That Rosalie eased Carlisle's conscience with her eventual bliss. That Rosalie, in reaction to finding her equal and real love, changes by softening and become a greater facet of the family.

He's grateful it worked out -- for her, and for them -- but it probably makes him keep a broader awareness of Rosalie's ability to turn things on a pin when her emotions or whims need to upend everything else she's said or done before. 

 

Except that they also aren't like oil and water.

I think given time? Rosalie and Edward are remarkably alike though.

When Rosalie was turned during her three days obviously like Esme, Edward was aware of everything going on in her head, so that when she becomes fully a vampire and her human memories while still horrid in remembering how she died is suddenly shoddy, grainy and like looking through a dark veil....Edward on the other had has her memories of all those moments in stunningly vivid vampire pristine head vision. Even while he complained that her turning and her wedding day dress revenge are massively endangering to their family, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to stop her. There's no way he'd feel they deserved any less with the view of her death pristinely captured in his memory for all eternity. 

I think the introduction of Emmett upset their dynamic even more, but that as he warmed up to Emmett and she fell in love with him.....that all three of those relationships (Emmet-Edward, Edward-Rosalie, and Emmett-Rosalie) helped him to actually understand and accept Rosalie far more as a person. While she was coming into the drastic change of her life because of Emmett.

I think behind Edward Rosalie is the next person who is the stick-in-the-muddest about the safety of their family. About how nothing that endangers them is acceptable....and that in that he very much relies on her. I think the only reason he can't be pissed at Rosalie's drastic reaction to Bella and his early interaction with Bella is that he's clinging to the knowledge Rosalie won't let him go too far, won't let him destroy his family utterly.

Because he wouldn't let her and he has to have faith she'll stop him, too, if it comes down to that. It helps to keep him knowing his family's protection isn't falling apart as his sanity is.

Which says drastic things about his faith in her and her loyalty to them all.

She's also the only person who will work on cars with him, and you know they spend hours on hours talking about the cars. You know she's the one he goes to when he's buying a new one. You know he picked out the cars for Bella with her, after she agreed to humor him and at least not complain out loud about the inconvenience of the time....and let her help pick out colors and detailing.

I think Edward and Rosalie also bonded over music, since she's supposed to be the second best musician in the family. I bet you, out of the blue, when the family really isn't expecting it, Rosalie and Edward play together and it's terribly amazing. I think it would be impossible for him not find some comfort in that depth of a shared passion between them, too.


	5. Opinions on one Mr. Emmett Cullen

I had to think on Emmett a lot honestly, because he's quoted by Bella in the third or fourth book as being Edward's favorite brother. I think this has a lot to do with background honestly, which takes in account much speculation. Even if one includes the Chapter 14 outtake, Emmett is the person with the least amount of readily given background details. 

Emmett was Rosalie's misstep in Edward's mind for the first day I'm sure, especially because Emmett was actually dying of being stupidly foolish and actually his own person and yet Rosalie had taken him solely because he reminded her of her past-life best friends son. Tangling her past nostalgia, with the inability to have a child, with the inability to see Emmett for Emmett, and begging Carlisle to do for her what she'd held against him for a long time....isn't the most amazing ground work for a beginning.

But three days of listening to someone scream in your head, while all the thoughts of their life and the base of who they are is siphoned away by agony makes it hard not to care about them at all. 

(Which is, in my opinion, also why Edward never stopped Rosalie from her wedding dress massacre even if he complained the whole time. As her human memories of that would be distant and grainy, while still horrid, from the moment after her change took place and his were panoramic vampire pristine trauma for eternity. Even if she was endangering them he'd feel the action was deserved.)

I think that Edward probably felt some endearing (and lingering annoyance) qualities in the fact that Emmett continued to refer to Carlisle as God (i.e., see the outtake). Even if he mentally winced through hearing Rosalie referred to as an Angel in his reactions to her actions. Hearing someone is grateful to Carlisle as their first reactions to this life, in the pain and after it--both grateful for being saved and grateful for being changed, does make for a comfort to Edward. It would be a sore and reluctant, but still a comfort, especially given the way Rosalie had reacted to the gift two year prior.

Emmett would have also brought a more carefree influence into the family that all of the four before lacked. Emmett who fell off the wagon enough times to be called far more than clumsy, without ever actually being overly embarrassed or gets enmeshed in worries over the incidents. He fell off and got on and fell off and got on, making some headway for Edward to finally let go of the choice he made to leave (even if not in ever releasing the debt of life stolen). I think that through Emmett he found a way to marginally let go of his past, looking at bits of it as growing lessons. Because Emmett, while not lacking regret, does not get caught up in the mistakes he makes, only looks forward to what can be done from here. 

Emmett is probably the second easiest person for Edward to be around. Emphasis on the word easiest there more than any opinion on how he feels about him. Why? BecauseEmmett is direct and to the point. Where everyone has thoughts, which they filter and edit, Emmett is direct. What Emmett thinks, wants, feels, etc comes out of his mouth pretty much at the second it's happening in his head. 

This would be immensely a relief to Edward's having to listen to the where and why's of what makes people say what they say always. Having to understand and translate and avoid saying he understood too well what they weren't saying. And there's Emmettspeaking directly from his reactions. It would be a massive, if quiet, relief. 

Whereas Edward and Rosalie probably got along on the surface for the two year between her change and his, Emmett would have changed the dynamic on many levels. Where they'd probably been paired together for lies the introduction of Emmett would have also introduced The Cullen Family lie as there was suddenly a more unavoidably teenage contingent to the traveling group of all those made after him. 

I don't think Edward missed being pulled in by Emmett's charisma any more than the rest of his family. I think Emmett would be very possibly the Cullen hardest not to like (with the only stipulation being if he doesn't think you're a threat to the family). He's the onewho's always cracking jokes and making bets and pointing out the obvious. Encouraging them to play games and free form fight, to take chances and generally to have *fun*. He's the one with the adorable dimples and curly hair, who looks just a little too boyish even as he towers over all of them like an impending mountain. His devil may care attitude turned almost selectively toward fun and frivolity. He's the classically, cliché, class clown-jock older brother type even if he is the youngest of the children and Edward probably has had a laugh with him over it before. 

Add to this that Emmett has an unswerving urge in him to bury things into the ground, fighting and defending, Edward would approve of that mentality in the family. He's stronger than all of them and quick to disagree with anything that threatens them. It's not about weighing out the consequences or choices to Emmett. The family comes first and everything else can be blighted. Quickly and brutally and absolutely. 

Somewhere in there I'm sure that Emmett has degrees in things, but we're not given to think very highly on Emmett's course of intellect anywhere. He's the impulsive, laughing, aggressive one. Which I think would be cause for a disconnect between them in places. I couldn't really see them taking part in long educational debates or swapping opinions on books. Emmett really is not the material of the Old Boys Club. He's too young--and I mean that in a way that has nothing to do with age. That it's just not part of their dynamic as friends/brothers and never was. 

But I do think that Emmett was the first (and probably still is) person in the family who could finally get Edward out of his head, out of being so serious and older. (The fifteen years earlier precursor to Alice, obviously, except that Alice does not require him out of his head, ever, the same as he doesn't of her.) Emmett's always the person who made the dynamic change to it being a family and not just a coven a smoother transition. He's got a winning ability to go along with things and make feel that they can go along with them without too much issue. 

I will say that I'm of many different minds where it comes to Edward re: Emmett-Bella. 

Let's start with the outtake. Emmett and Bella feel bonded according to the narration because they both fell in love with a vampire pre-death. Edward would not, and in the piece does not with his actions, agree with this translation and parallel of events. Rosalie chose Emmett because he stirred her faded, nearly dormant human memories, while Bella was thrust upon him by...fate, the necessary plot, etc. Emmett got to see Rosalie because she chose to save him, whereas Bella got Edward because he refused to stay gone and couldn't fight her power over him. Emmett was human, and hardly coherent, definitely more deliriously attached to Rosalie, but not in love with her yet, and only spent a few very short, mostly incoherent hours in her arms while she ran him to Carlisle whereas Bella is well aware of everything, not being chosen because she reminds him of anything, they do love each other and he choosing not to change her because of it (...and other things, of course).

Then let's shift into other things. Emmett is probably the most accepting person of the Edward's final commandment re: Bella stays human. He doesn't agree with it, because it creates complications and weaknesses in the family, but it's not a hang up for him. It's already a made decision and he never once shoves his opinion in about it again until the vote. He seems to adjust to the fact she just an enigma they'll all live with until Edward changes his mind one day and actually delights in the fact he gets to make fun of all of the faults Bella has because she's human. And in a way where it's obviously not all just insults at her, the way Rosalie does. I absolutely adore moments like 

\- Emmett rooting Bella on for punching a werewolf in Eclipse

\- the dance in Breaking Dawn where he steals Bella from Edward saying he wants to make his little sister blush a few more times   
before it won't happen again. 

Edward doesn't have to worry about Bella (or her growing rebellion or its encouragement by certain or uncertain means) when she's with Emmett. At least not anymore than he does on any given day when she's still breathing, allowed free range over her own locomotion and given to thinking. I think that makes for some really, really, really solid ground in the books between the boys, because there isn't something laboring between them about his action or inaction. Because Emmett isn't that type of person. 

I think their relationship comes down more to ease and enjoyment than it does to actual understanding, which isn't bad. It's just different and unique in comparison to his other relationships in his family. Emmett is easy to be near and even easier to keep in good spirit which naturally become addictive to those involved in whatever he's doing, Edward included.


	6. Opinions on one Mr. Jasper Hale

I think that Edward respects Jasper more than he likes him (which is not to say that he doesn't like Jasper. He does. But the distinction is important). 

Jasper and Edward, when they were human, both aimed themselves in the same direction. The fact that Jasper was the only one to actually make it into a war, and that their wars were nearly a century apart, doesn't change that fact. It does probably make Edward more intrigued and open to certain conversations with Jasper than he would not be with say Alice-Carlisle-Esme who are obvious right monsters, but very given to the notion of peaceful (or avoiding the creating of the situation-) solution first. 

Edward wanted to be a soldier. It defined his last human years and undermined his relationship with his own mother. Getting to eighteen and becoming part of the war. Jasper actually stole away and lied to become part of one before he was of age. Something Edward probably envies the act and decision of, even half a century later. At their base they were driven to be part of something bigger, to defend ideals and ideas bigger than themselves in a very real and physical fashion. And probably something they bonded well over in the beginning, because the need to defend and fight is apparent in each of them. 

Being one of the three people in the house with extra-abilities throws the three of them into a box from the beginning. A little more extraordinary, both in what they have and what they have to deal with because of it. There is a division in the fact Jasper, while still effected by the outside world, can control his power. He can change and effect how he and other people are feeling. Edward was perhaps a very long time ago envious of this fact, but not beyond the first blush. As it's not something Jasper had any more control over getting than Alice or he had in not getting. 

He gets to use his power as a sentinel for protecting their family to an extra step than the other two (and to that extent, even other six). He also gets to read their family -- both in the fashion of figuring out what's going on and being able to keep them from going overboard. In any million number of situations. 

I will go out on the limb of saying that while Edward is a right bastardly good liar (a habit honed from not having to react to the millions of things people think a day that he can't avoid hearing) that Jasper is probably the one person in the family who can tell when he's hiding something big. Because Edward can mask his posture and his expression and even his voice....but he can't change what he's feeling on the inside. 

There is one thing though that Jasper and Edward experience, and probably have bonded over both knowing they’ve each experienced and in avoiding at times, that no one else in the family has had to experience -- and that is the intimate contact with their prey at the time of hunting/killing. 

Imagine being them for a moment. 

Jasper, in the middle of the moment of killing a person or a vampire (or perhaps an animal even), gets to feel the raw terror and debilitating helplessness or regret that is rolling off his victim. And affecting him. Edward, in the middle of the moment of killing a person or vampire, is being flooded with all the things which flood the mind when one is thinking their last thoughts. 

It's not particularly appetizing, is it?

I'm sure somewhere, some when there were conversations about this. Even if they were probably the smallest relegated down ones, where Jasper was thinking his response and Edward was responding in three to five word sentences. While they discussed it half nonchalantly, as though it was nothing (because no one else has ever understood) and with epic waves of relief (because no one else had ever understood before). 

That Jasper belongs to Alice, and vise-verse, does not hurt his appreciation of Jasper either. Even if it does not belong securely to Jasper, on Jasper's merit alone, the fact they are together cements Jasper closer to Edward because of Edward's nearness to Alice/Alice's nearness to Edward and Alice's dearness to Jasper as well as his reciprocation of that dearness. He actively gets bonus love from Edward for being so unwaveringly, stick in the mud, fiercely defensive of Alice's safety (even if Edward is the one who rankles Jasper's chain by encouraging her to do more things outside of his watch). It's both hypocritical and corollary. The fact that Jasper cares so much for Alice and would do so much for Alice, without reservation to any of the vows he's made in his life or to the Cullen’s, (which Edward is comfortably/gladly positive Jasper would break every single one of them, without blinking, if it came down to that for Alice's safety) makes Edward esteem Jasper very highly. Because he knows he doesn't have to worry when it comes to Alice being taken care of (for better and worse) as that's already in the best hands possible. 

Edward and Jasper (and Emmett) probably consist of a section of the Cullen household that would understand not only the thinking of breaking the rules but the out right near painfully wanting to when it comes to their family. 

Think about Breaking Dawn when Edward is talking to Bella about Jasper. Jasper's been considering for the final fight going and killing a human because it will make him stronger, and thus make the fight easier on their side for the strength/speed/agility/etc. Bella is aghast at the idea, and probably so are a few other people and Edward talks about it plainly. It's a military tactic to Edward and Jasper, very likely. Even as a big break in their personal vows to their selves and their family, the unacted upon urge is not a debilitating weakness or desperation. It's a tactical maneuver....it's the idea of sacrificing one ideal of importance (not killing humans) for the greater ideal of importance (keeping their family alive). Carlisle would not approve, but the truth is neither of them would ask for the approval in this eventuality either.

[Wherein I read that conversation between Bella-Edward as Edward hopes that Jasper won't....but probably wouldn't stop him, or tell so that someone else could. Because, oh, but by god, do they get strategy and sacrifice and what is more important. Which isn't how people see them or judge their actions.]

But somewhere back around the middle to beginning -- 

I think that more than feeling annoyed at Jasper's unending diatribe on the walking meat-sticks, er, students of Fork High Edward feels reluctantly embarrassed and resigned. Reluctantly embarrassed because he knows his family needs him to listen and watch over Jasper, and Alice totally relies on him for updates of how Jasper actually doing BUT....it’s one of those things Edward really, really, really, really wouldn't listen to if he was given the choice. It's hearing someone having to battle with their own inner demons in the best and worst and most fantasizingly naked ways. 

Edward Totally Does Not tell Alice, or any of his family for that matter, what Jasper fantasizes about doing to people. How often or anything else related to it. He's there to kick the chair leg when something gets too loud, and to keep a covert eye out for possible slipping. But Edward Does Not Share The Things He Has To Be Experiencing In This Work. 

(It's just not his place. And Jasper deserves whatever privacy Edward can give him above and beyond not being able to just not hear him.)

He also doesn't go about talking about how much he respects that Jasper's still going at it fifty years later with the same dogged determination, especially with what he goes through in doing it. 

I mean, respect like Whoa. In the massive degree. 

It's one thing to say you're going to beat something and then to find a way up and over it. Where you are beyond it and people can pat you on the back and it can be the fiddled away into small talk. It's entirely another to be the mute witness watching someone willingly walk into hell every time, day in and day out. There is no way Edward couldn't respect what Jasper does for them (regardless of the risk he poses). 

Which also made me utterly love Jasper's thought to Edward, on the day he returns from Alaska, when the entire family is watching like hawks the twitchiness of Edward. And there's -- 

 

_[Jasper] met my glance briefly, and grinned._

_Annoying, isn't it?_

 

And I have to laugh and I have to love them. Because their dichotomy has flipped into the reverse. Jasper can feel the hell Edward's going through, while just sitting there and he has to help watch over him. And he's still open enough and acknowledging enough to be like, so this is you in my shoes and me in yours...and wow, but it still blows, doesn't it? 

You know they get along. 

They just do. 

In a quiet, reserved, militantly undermined, old world, gentlemanly, dry humor, willing risk everything for the right things fashion.

Which brings me to their quiet in commonness of being scholarly driven. I can just see the Old Boys Club that Carlisle, Jasper and Edward make up on occasion. They are the most educated members of the family, not so much in how many degrees they've earned that no one else has, but in how much they want to learn and have read and experienced (as opposed to wanting to build, or work, or shop, or play). That they can probably only find interest in the discussing of these rare and not so much loved classics of all scopes except among each other. 

It would make Jasper one of those people Edward seeks out for conversation and discussion at regular intervals. Reading books, experiencing the classical of all things, and discussing all manner of their interactions is probably a past time of theirs. Which I think in some ways, Jasper probably gets the view of Edward at his real age the most often.


End file.
